Excuses for not volunteering at the Christmas Fair....

[temporaryname99]

I am honest at all times, and sometimes it would be better if I wasn't.
When I got an email to ask me directly - not just a general group email- if I will help at the Christmas Fair, these are all the honest answers I considered giving:
The Christmas Fair is like the 7th circle of hell; it's hot, crowded and noisy, everyone is lugging round bags and coats, it's like torture.
I was on the Tombola last year and I was traumatised by the absoulutely embarrassingly sad looking prizes, one woman who kept buying more and more tickets until she'd spent far more than any of the prizes were worth, and by being completely alone with no one to answer my questions or take over from me.
Previously I've tried to help with set up, but never been given proper instructions and just stood around feeling useless or I've been given some impossible craft task that I'm terrible at, like making paper snowflakes.
I know if I volunteered to help it would hang over me and I would feel anxious about it from now until it was over.
I'm perfectly capable in other spheres; have no problem training a group of people, giving speeches, travelling in strange places, but the school fair is my nightmare.

I know other people would just make an excuse, and say oh I can't make it , but I can't lie, so I said I was traumatised by last year and I would support by donating items and spending money at the fair.
But I feel guilty. And know I come over as pathetic. I really saw myself as the kind of mum who would be very involved in these things, but when it came down to it, I realised it's really not where my strengths lie.

Long post! Sorry! I just had to offload all that on to mumsnet!!
Anyone else find school fairs excruciating? What are your Excuses?

Please just say "no, I decided that it isn't something I could do again."

If you can find something else to do for the PTA at another time on the year then do that.

Going to the fair and spending money is important too.

I am similar to you OP so I have volunteered my husband to help. He doesn't mind and it's nice for him to be involved 👍🏻

*Slightly^ yes, I get your point. But the children at our school love the Christmas and summer fairs, and they are by far the biggest fundraisers. So they are a necessary evil in our PTA calendar.

Either don't reply to emails requesting help, most people don't or simply say you would rather not help this year but you will attend.

As the chair of my children's PTA I'm one of those sados who loves a bit of organising! However, when ever I ask for volunteers I make sure they are comfortable with what they are doing and also say how grateful we are for their help and support. When you volunteer you need to feel appreciated and valued.

I genuinely can't do the Christmas fair. I'm at work and can't take time off in the busiest time of the year. I don't feel guilty...DS will spend my money there with Grandma.

Win win.

Teddy I don't have spare time! I work full time, used to take Friday afternoons as annual leave. But that was when we had a total of 3 committee members. Plenty of volunteers between 12 and 3, but nothing for the set up or clean up.

This year there's loads of helpers so it's my turn to waltz in at 11:30 with the floats once all the hard work is done then bugger off at 3 and count the money in the comfort of my own home with a g&t.

At my dcs school, each class is given a stall (or several classes are given a stall together if it's something big like the cake stall). The class reps get this and are expected to sort out helpers, and any additional things the stall needs.

This meant for our class, no one was being asked to give up a whole afternoon, but to volunteer for a 30 minute slot, with a second person helping, through out the afternoon (some people also helped set up, some clear up). We did this via a doodle poll so you could see the names of who was before you, after you, and sharing the same time slot. The day before everyone was encouraged to make sure they had the numbers for those they were taking over from so if they were late they could text.

Everyone turned up on time, all was cleared up and the school made £5,500 in total for a 3 hour fair.

The PTA don't need to find helpers to give up the best part of a day (once you've done set up and clear up it can be hours), just find a large number of people who can give up a short time. (And once you've done your 30 min slot, most then went to spend some money).

Suggest that for a model for next year.

Incidently...people always say on these threads, and rightly so, "but if nobody wants to help it won't run at all."

I've just put it to our own fundraising committee that if nobody wants to help and views it as a bit hellish...maybe it's not for us. We just do the Christmas Fairon because it's 'what you do'...it's horrible. The Easter Treasure hunt though...out in the sun...Lots of space...we get much more help, people like it. We don't need to do the obligatory stuff.

ny2005 count yourself lucky, there are over 600 kids at DS School and there are 8 of us on the PTA!
Luckily some of the teachers are fab and pitch in to help too ( we never ask them, they offer)

FAIR...I've no idea what a fairon is

Invisible, one year they did it at our school. They assigned stall/task to each class, ended up teacher/TA had to come in and cover, since there were not enough volunteers in the class. I felt so sorry for the teacher.
It may not work in some case.

It’s a pain but you can then excuse yourself from the rest of the events. I did 6 hours, set up, the event and clear up from 3 pm until 9pm. That’s me done will expect others to volunteer for the other 6 or so yearly events.

I don't make excuses. If I'm asked nicely I just say "No, I'm sorry but that won't be possible". If I'm not, then it's either just "No" or "No, I don't want to".

I sympathize with OP but this is terrible advice if you want to have any ongoing civil relationship with the other parents at school.

I’m picturing an email exchange like:
Hi Temporaryname99, I was wondering if you might be willing to spare a half hour to help out at our class booth at the Christmas Fair. You did a fab job at the tombola last year and we could really use your help. Catch me on the playground if you have any questions. See you soon!

Response:
“No. That won’t be possible. I don’t want to.”

People would think you were either the rudest fucker on earth or clinically insane. So, I strongly suggest you either make up a plausible excuse, or simply be honest, but polite. Social niceties exist for a reason! Something like this would go down a LOT better:

I’m really sorry but I don’t think I can volunteer this year. Bob will be away and I’ve got nobody to watch the kids (and if I’m being honest, I found the whole thing a bit stressful last year.) I would, however, be happy to drop off a cake for the cake sale and ten large jam jars filled with lovely things for the tombola. And definitely count me in for the Easter Egg Hunt!

Invisible kitten attack; that sounds great! I might suggest it.
As other people have said, maybe I'll volunteer to clean up. Not sure what I'll do with the kids, but I might be able to work something out.

OP I am similar in that I overthink these kind of things horribly and get anxious about them.

However I reckon a lot of this is down to having avoided unfamiliar social situations in the past and stuck to my sofa comfort zone instead.

I think I just need more practice and so the more I do the less anxious I will be. I am determined to become ok at this sort of thing. Like you, I'm capable in other very challenging spheres - I really ought to be able to manage helping at a christmas fair FFS.

So I'm manning a stall at our school fair on Sunday... wish me luck

irvineoneohone - you misunderstand, the teachers/TA had nothing to do with it, do you have 'class reps' (a parent for each class who are basically the 'rep' for each class with school things)? They were emailed by the PTA and told their stall and to sort it however best suits their class. They sorted out their own other parents (in both of my DCs classes, the class reps had asked other parents for an email address early on in the year so they have their own distribution list).

Realistically, we needed 2 people for each half hour on the stall and 2 for set up/clear up. This meant we needed 16 people in total, out of the 30 sets of parents. I think 1 person did 2 slots (did a full hour rather than just 30 mins), so we had 15 for our stall, out of 60 parents. Wasnt too painful to sort.

The school where I work is quite large - almost 400 in juniors alone. Very few parents want to give a few hours of their time to help raise funds to make their children's school experience better than we can find out of the school budget alone. Because so few parents are willing to help, staff are told we are expected to attend and help. Last year it was three hours behind my finishing time. Unpaid :we are paid by the hour. I fully expect it will be a similar story this year. OP, if you don't want to help because of the 'embarrassing ' prizes, maybe you could donate a few decent prizes instead?

Invisible, oh sorry. It sounds different from what we had. There were no class rep, each class was assigned with stall. So basically, if the class didn't get enough parent volunteers, teachers and TAs ended doing the job. It didn't work well. I ended up doing double as well. It didn't work well at our school, but class rep maybe the key.

Our Christmas fair is our biggest fundraiser so unfortunately we have to suck it up & do it - all for the kids

Luckily we send guilting texts & letters Home & we had enough parent helpers on the night. Our pta put in months of work for the fair but we're lucky to have a few core reliables who don't join pta but are happy to help on each event

The kids love the Christmas fair too - oldest class use it as enterprise task & have to make items to sell & work out costings & marketing.

They'd be gutted if we sent Home letters asking for £10 not to have one & most of the letters would be ignored 🙄

I'm one of those parents that often invest a lot of time and effort into the Christmas fair; behind the scenes in getting everything organised, setting up, running the actual thing, tidying.
Every year I end up doing a lot more than i was planning to do, simply because I'll see the 'gaps' coming, and rather than let everything fail (which would mean the effort already made would be wasted), I'll jump in and fill the gap, for instance if no-one volunteers for setting up. I have the flexibility to do this and a couple of other parents do the same, so it's alright.

But I am also the parent who will implore other parents to just attend the fair without any feelings of guilt. Because all my (and others') efforts would be wasted if people didn't turn up and spend their money on the things we prepared/manned/tidy up!

Just like there need to be people who bid on the auction items; auctions can make huge amounts of money but if everyone is urged to donate something for the auction and then feels disinclined to bid, it will make less money and create bad feelings rather than making money and creating a good time.

It is like you shouldn't feel guilty for not baking cakes for the cake sales. Please just come and buy some! If you can afford to, of course. I don't mind baking some cakes, but I do mind buying ingredients, baking cakes, and then buying them back off the PTA because not enough people bought cake. If it were like that I'd much rather donate some money and save myself the trouble of baking a nut-free cake; if I want some cake I can always bake one if and when, and can make it the way I like (and with nuts) rather than what will sell best.

All that said, I do get pretty annoyed at how our PTA runs the fair. We have a basically good system with class reps, and each class has one 'job' e.g. Y3 does Santa's Grotto, Y2 does the games room, Y4 does cakes and coffee, ... However they then 'overload' some classes by expecting them to do more than reasonable, leaving the willing helpers overloaded, and eventually frustrated and no longer willing. E.g. if the games room is expected to be such that it takes 4 people 3 hours to set up, then takes 10 people to 'man' it at all times, meaning that EVERY family has to invest an hour, which won't happen, so half the families will be spending two hours or more there (and not spending money elsewhere at the fair), and then takes a good time to tidy up.

Also the PTA is focused on raising money, which is fine but they tend to forget that the fair should ALSO be a fun affair, for the children AND the parents. The idea IMO is to provide a fun event that will also make money. If the fair is such that people only attend because they feel they ought to, you might just as well ask them to donate some money (because they feel they ought to) and save them from having to attend, and save yourselves a huge amount of work!

While you're cleaning up can the kids "help", wandering around with a bin bag maybe?

Acrophobia

Agoraphobia

I find it quite stressful too, you’d never think I manage to hold down a responsible professional job! Lol.

I still always help though, at the end of the day without helpers these events can’t run and it means less money for the PTA and for the benefit of our kids. Maybe doing the teas might be less stressful than a tombola?

No advice to give, OP, but I totally sympathise. Have been there many times. Already trying to wriggle out of this year ‘s xmas fayre. Thinking of making a cash donation to the school for every event I don’t attend.